


Little Lion Man

by denkiisbestboyo



Series: Downhill (Dream SMP/Sleepy Bois Inc.) [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dadza and his sons, Gen, Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Pre-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27801958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/denkiisbestboyo/pseuds/denkiisbestboyo
Summary: “They’re your brothers.” Phil says. “They’ll always come back.”“How do you know?”Phil falters at that. “Well…” How do you explain the bond between family members to a child? That even though not all of them are connected by blood, the ties they form will hold through thick and thin. That you can count on your family members for anything, and no matter what, they’ll pull through, no questions asked. “Do you remember that story I told you? About the family of pigs?”Tommy nods.“And how even though one of the pigs got turned into a zombie and had to go live with the zombie pigs, they still loved him anyway?”Tommy nods again.“It’s like that.” Phil finishes.Tommy smiles. “Because Techno is a pig.”Phil laughs. “No, because they love you, and they would do anything for you.” Phil lays a hand over his son's heart. “You know that in here.”
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Phil Watson, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Series: Downhill (Dream SMP/Sleepy Bois Inc.) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029396
Comments: 16
Kudos: 224





	Little Lion Man

**Author's Note:**

> dream smp angst make my brain go brrrrrrr

“Parry, parry!” Phil shouts, a smile playing at his lips as he thrust the short wooden swords forward. 

Wilbur throws his own practice sword up to block and stumbles a little on wobbly knees. He’s had another growth spurt, and is still learning to walk on new legs. He’s been eating more too - not that Phil minds, they’ve always had more than enough to eat. 

Phil backs off a little and lets Wilbur regain his footing. He’s getting better at the mechanics of a sword fight, and soon enough, Phil knows he’ll be asking for a real sword. 

Wilbur thrusts his sword forward and Phil blocks it easily, catching the edge of the wooden blade, knocking it back. He’s expecting Wilbur to need a moment to ready up another swing, but Wilbur turns the force of his block around and hits Phil’s shins with a mighty swoop. 

Phil doesn’t even mind the sting of the wooden edge on his leg because Wilbur had finally managed to use momentum and he’d done it by himself. 

Wilbur senses the change too, because he laughs and aims another thrust. Phil blocks it again, but Wilbur turns it around, using the momentum of the block to swipe down, aiming at Phil’s legs again. Phil is too quick for him this time and dodges the blow. They’ll have to work on being unpredictable and subtle about intentions. 

They keep at it for a while more, the echoing clacks of the wood bouncing off the trees to their right and the house to their left. He can see Wilbur’s thrusts slowing and his footsteps are more weary so he backs off a little. 

Wilbur thwacks him in the legs again, and Phil collapses into the grass, dropping his sword. “Ah!” He cries, mockingly breathy. “You’ve got me now!”

Wilbur giggles and raises his sword above Phil’s chest, stabbing it down between his arm and his torso. Though the blade doesn’t hurt at all, Phil still groans as Wilbur fake-stabs him and lays there, playing dead in the grass. 

Wilbur flops down next to him. “Dad?”

Phil opens an eye. “I’m dead, not dad.”

Wilbur grins. “Can we go make dinner?”

“Sure.” Phil picks himself up out of the lawn and grabs the two practice swords. “What do you want to eat?”

Wilbur jumps up as well. “Porkchops!” 

“Porkchops it is.” Phil says, ruffling his boy’s hair as they meander back towards the house, pleasantly sweaty and grass stained.

* * *

Philza finds him in a cave, dug out from underneath the podium he was just standing on when he handed the presidency over to Tubbo. There’s writing scrawled on the walls in Wilbur’s thin handwriting and Philza just stands at the end of the tunnel for a moment, reading. 

It’s the lyrics to the national anthem. My L’manberg, written over and over and over again. 

Wilbur doesn’t turn around when Phil steps into the room. He’s talking to himself, muttering under his breath as he paces back and forth in front of a simple button. 

Phil knows what he’s going to do. 

He clears his throat. “L’Manberg, huh?”

Wilbur’s head snaps up, and there's a manic sort of energy in his eyes. He looks awful - his jacket is torn and stained and the ends of his hair that stick out from underneath his knit hat are singed. There’s a smudge of soot on his face and Phil’s fingers twitch at his side - he wants to reach out and brush it away.

“Dad.” Wilbur breathes the word, something about him tensing. He’s on guard now. They both know why Philza is here. 

There will be no beating around the bush. “Wil, what are you doing?” Phil says. 

“You know exactly what I’m doing.” Wilbur says, gesturing to the walls around them. The lyrics look like a suicide note.

“I-.” There’s a lump forming in Phil’s throat. “Wilbur, you spent so much time in this place. You fought Dream, and then Schlatt and now you finally have it back and…” He looks at the button. “Are you sure you want to take that risk?”

Wilbur follows his gaze, eyes falling on the button behind him. Phil can see him wavering, the gears turning in his mind. 

“There are a lot of explosives connected to that button.” Phil says. “Wil, if you do this, they’ll never forgive you.”

Wilbur turns so that his back is to his father and he’s blocking the button from view. “There was a saying, Phil, by a traitor once part of L’Manberg.”

Eret. Phil had seen him down with the other on the grounds outside. He was fighting with L’Manberg again, no longer a traitor. 

Wilbur takes a breath, and then there’s a click that echoes in the cave. “It was never meant to be.”

“Oh my god.” Phil can taste the ash in the air already. “You didn’t-”

The cave blows apart. Phil drops to the ground and curls his arms over her head, but he’s still thrown about as the ground rumbles underneath them. All he can hear is stone breaking and falling, and then a rush of air as the front of the cave completely disappears, leaving them on a cliffside.

The dust hasn’t settled, but Phil lifts himself up off the ground anyway, and looks out over the edge of the cliff. 

L’Manberg is completely gone, a crater in its place. He can hear screams coming from below as people scramble to find their friends in the rubble, and fireworks are going off - that must be Technoblade. There are people in the crater, thrown aside by the explosion, stumbling around, confused. 

It’s something straight from a nightmare. 

“My L’Manberg!” Wilbur is grinning like a maniac as he pulls himself up off the ground. He’s littered with cuts from chips of stone, and parts of his coat are smoldering in the heat. “My great unfinished symphony, forever unfinished!”

He’s insane. 

Phil looks back to the chaos below. Technoblade wades through the people, killing whoever gets in his way, still a king amidst the rubble. He’s completely unfazed by the wreckage - but of course he is. 

Phil can’t pick Tommy out of the crowds. 

Something clatters to the ground next to him, and Phil turns to see Wilbur’s sword on the ground at his feet. 

“Kill me Phil.” Wilbur says.

Phil picks up the sword, his fingers curling around the hilt. This man standing in front of him isn’t his son anymore. There’s nothing left of Wilbur in those manic eyes. Wilbur wouldn’t have pressed the button. 

Wilbur wouldn’t have made it all for nothing. 

“Kill me.” Wilbur lurches forward on unsteady knees, gripping Phil’s shoulders. “Stab me through the middle Phil.”

He doesn’t call him dad. There is no semblance of his son left in this man.

Phil still wraps his arm around Wilbur and tucks his face into his hair, hugging him close. He smells like smoke and sweat, and his hair is slightly damp. 

Phil clutches Wilbur tight and plunges his sword through his middle. 

It feels like he did it to himself.

* * *

Technoblade always reads at the breakfast table as he eats. Phil always takes note of the book - usually it’s some sort of otherworldly adventure, sometimes it's war theory and politics, but today, it’s one of Phil’s own books from the shelf in his workroom. It’s an old tome, leather bound with a dark metal finish.

Phil slides a sizzling plate of eggs across the table to Techno and sits down. “What made you pick up that one?”

Techno’s nose twitches and he sets the book aside for a moment to focus on his eggs instead, shoveling them hungrily into his mouth. He’s a growing boy, and at this rate he’ll probably be taller than him. He’s already stronger, even though Phil’s at least twice his age. Maybe it’s genetics. 

Techno shrugs. “The information will come in handy later.” 

Phil can feel his eyebrows shoot up. “You’re planning to go to the Nether?” The book is a guide to surviving hell, essentially, and Phil had picked it up from a wandering trader in his youth when he had been planning to make the journey himself. The book had come in handy when he was wandering through the fiery pits.

Technoblade just blinks at him, like this is something every twelve year old boy wants. “You went, didn’t you?”

“Yes but-” Phil starts. 

“If I want to be rich and powerful, I’m going to need to go.” Techno says. “Gold is easier to find there, and ghast tears and blaze rods can make you a fortune in the markets.”

“Technoblade, it’s literally hell.” Phil laughs. 

Techno just finishes his eggs and goes back to the book. 

Phil sits back in his chair for a moment. Technoblade is twelve years old, and already making plans to become someone of importance… but Phil’s not really surprised. This kid has always had insane drive, even in the pointless games they would play as a family. What with all the adventure books he read, it made sense that he was already planning an adventure of his own. 

Phil reaches out across the table and flips the bookmark into the book, marking Technoblade’s place before he closes it. 

Techno looks at him, mildly confused. 

“What do you want to know?” Phil asks. 

His son’s eyes light up. “Is it true that if you try to sleep there, the ground just detonates?” 

Phil nods, remembering the days of trudging through the barren landscape low on energy. “Unfortunately.”

Techno is on a roll now. “Were you hit by any Wither skeletons? What does that feel like? In a nether fortress, do the blazes just wander around or do they stay in specific rooms?”

Phil just chuckles and starts down the winding tale of his journey to hell and back.

* * *

Phil hasn’t heard the otherworldly screams that echo through the skies since his youth. The Withers hide between the clouds of smoke in the air, raining down fire on the streets of the town. There are eight in the air. 

Phil knows exactly who would have the capacity to summon eight of the wretched things from the underworld. 

Technoblade wades through the chaos like he’s walking in his own home, completely at ease. His braid is ragged and his cape is stained but he still looks like a king, head held high and sword at the ready. 

With a heavy heart, Phil charges into the fray, Wilbur’s sword still in his hand. This needs to stop. 

Around him, what remains of L’Manberg is aflame and rapidly crumbling. People are screaming and pushing past each other, some attempting to get away from the Withers, others, like Phil running for them. In his many years, Phil has fought many creatures, some even more powerful than the three headed monsters that swoop through the smoke now. 

A fireball hits the ground next to him, causing him to stumble as he tracks the trajectory of the thing. A Wither has narrowed its line of attack to him, and is screeching as it flies at him, bony mouths open and flaming. 

Phil readies the sword in his hand and stabs the thing through the ribs without hesitation. Adrenaline surges in him as he hacks at bone. The heat from the fire inside it scorches his skin, but he’s unfeeling, pressing on until the thing utters one last ungodly wail and stills at his feet, the light behind it’s empty sockets finally dying. 

Wilbur’s sword is hot to the touch, and when Phil uncurls his fingers from around the hilt, the pattern of the grip is burned into his hand.

The thud of Wilbur’s lifeless body hitting the stone echoes in his mind. 

A firework cracks in the air, sending up a shoot of colorful flame, and Phil snaps back to reality, following the flare. He needs to find Technoblade.

The back of his mind tells him that he might have to kill his second son as well. 

Phil charges through the wreckage, following the periodic flares of color that alert him to where Technoblade is. The rubble is a maze, and there are no clear paths. He might not ever catch up to Technoblade-

But no, he’s standing there, striding through the wreckage with his crossbow in hand, peering into the nooks and crannies he passes. He’s looking for survivors. 

Phil wonders if the blood on his hands even bothers him. 

“Technoblade!” Phil shouts. His voice is hoarse and scratchy. He wraps his hands around the hilt of Wilbur’s sword again, and readies himself to attack. 

Technoblade turns, his cape swirling around him and his eyes connect with Phil’s. They’re narrowed. “Dad.”

He says it with an air of finality. He’s been expecting this confrontation. 

“Technoblade, you need to stop this.” Phil says. “The killing is pointless-”

Techno’s eyes are ablaze with anger. “No it’s not! Why can no one see it but me? They’re fools, Philza, all of them! Replacing one tyrant with another, and thinking themselves free! They’re idiots!”

He had always been too smart for his own good, and Phil hates that he’s right. 

That doesn’t mean he was right to betray them though. 

Techno sets off another firework and Phil leaps forward through the sparks, aiming for the blood red cape. His blade slices through the fabric, but Technoblade isn’t there. Something hits Phil's back and his breath is knocked out of him as he hits the ground. 

Technoblade is holding his sword like he hit him with the end of the hilt and not the blade. 

Phil rolls over, hands still clutching Wilbur’s sword. He raises it in a block for a slice that never comes. 

“Do you really think I would kill you, Philza?” Techno sneers. “I might be a traitor, but I’m not you.”

The blood red cape flutters behind him as he stalks away. 

The sickening feel of Wilbur’s last breath on his neck rolls around in Phil’s head.

* * *

Phil finds Tommy in his brothers now empty room, in a pile of blankets on the floor. 

“Tommy.” Phil kneels down next to his youngest son and puts a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

Tommy has snot dripping from his nose when he pulls his head out of the blankets and his eyes are red like he’s been crying. “When are Wilby and Techno coming back?”

Oh boy. Phil lifts Tommy up and sets him down in his lap, cradling his son as he scoops the blankets up as well, piling them around Tommy so he’s swaddled like a baby. He’s got the signature pout on his face, and Phil can see a slight mist building up in his eyes again. 

Techno and Wilbur have only been gone for a day.

“They’ll come visit all the time, you know that.” Phil says. “But they have their own houses now, and their own things to do.” 

Moving out had not been… easy. But Phil had known that eventually, this would happen. Wilbur was off with his guitar and his cap to explore the overworld, and Techno had settled in a village not far from here, a base of operations while he made his fortune in the Nether.

“It’s too quiet here now.” Tommy says. 

Phil runs a hand through his son's hair, soothing. “It’s not like they’re gone forever. And they both promised to bring you all sorts of wild gifts from far away lands for your birthday.”

Tommy’s frown seems to be permanently stitched onto his face though. 

“They’re your brothers.” Phil says. “They’ll always come back.”

“How do you know?” 

Phil falters at that. “Well…” How do you explain the bond between family members to a child? That even though not all of them are connected by blood, the ties they form will hold through thick and thin. That you can count on your family members for anything, and no matter what, they’ll pull through, no questions asked. “Do you remember that story I told you? About the family of pigs?”

Tommy nods. 

“And how even though one of the pigs got turned into a zombie and had to go live with the zombie pigs, they still loved him anyway?”

Tommy nods again. 

“It’s like that.” Phil finishes. 

Tommy smiles. “Because Techno is a pig.”

Phil laughs. “No, because they love you, and they would do anything for you.” Phil lays a hand over his son's heart. “You know that in here.”

* * *

When the dust settles hours later, Phil finds Tommy near the edge of the crater, staring out into the nothingness, silent. 

A silent Tommy is a broken Tommy. Phil knows this better than most. 

He settles beside him at the edge of the crater, little puffs of ash like small breaths from the ground floating up into the air as he sits down. The ground is dry and charred under Phil’s legs, and looking down, there’s no soil left in the crater at all, just cold stone. 

Phil drapes an arm over Tommy’s shoulders and finally sets Wilburs sword down. 

Tommy leans into the touch. “Hi Dad.” There’s a sort of solemn resolution to his voice, and he’s quiet. 

“Hi Tommy.” Phil rests his head on top of his sons and closes his eyes, just feeling for a moment. Tommy is reassuringly alive in his arms, and Phil can feel his chest expand with every breath, and the gentle thumping of his heart. 

He still has one of them.

He can feel the moment Tommy’s breath hitches and the wracking sobs start. He curls into Phil’s side more and wails, a haunting cry that sounds like everything and nothing at once.

He’s mourning already.

Sitting there, his son wailing into his shoulder, the reality starts to sink in. Wilbur is gone forever. Technoblade is a murderer - they’re both murderers. 

Wilbur’s sword catches the light and the sound of the blade sliding through his body plays in Phil’s mind. The warmth fading from his fingertips as he fell from the ground. The last echo of a smile on his face as the sword slid free.

Tommy might as well be an orphan now.

* * *

Phil sits down on the front steps of his house and his knees complain as he goes down because he’s not as young as he used to be. 

It’s been a while since he’s been here. The house is in need of repair - there’s weeds growing between the stones in the foundation, and the shutters on the windows need to be repainted. The barn is probably in even worse condition, but Phil can’t really be bothered. He’s not going to spend so much time here anyway, he really only came back to pick up some things for his new home in L’Manberg.

The barn cat rubs along his legs and purrs when Phil scratches his head. He’ll have to bring the cat with him. 

He picks himself up from the stairs and heads inside, leaving the door open in case the cat wants to follow him. The house is cool and the lights are out, but sunlight streams through the windows so Phil doesn’t bother to turn them on. He doesn’t want to stay here long anyway.

The house feels like a mausoleum. A testament to his failures as a father. 

He heads upstairs, the old wood creaking under his heavy boots. Most of the things he wants to take are in his room, so he heads down the hallway, passing open doors.

He stops at Wilbur and Techno’s room that they used to share. For a moment, he can hear a familiar melody in the back of his mind, and the clack of wooden sparring swords. 

Against his better judgement, he steps into the room. 

Two twin beds, pressed up against opposite walls of the room. Wilbur’s has one of the posts missing, broken off in a bout of roughhousing and never fixed. Techno’s still has the patched quilt he used to wear around his shoulders folded at the foot of the bed, ever neat and tidy. 

There’s a certain resonance in this room now. Phil never spent much time in here, preferring to let the boys have some of their own space, but now, looking at this place, there’s so much of them that he missed. 

Namely, the carving on the wall above the door. 

Phil runs his hand over the slices in the wooden frame. Their names. Wilbur, in his loopy script, and Technoblade, in his neat print. And next to them, in fresher cuts and sloppy writing, Tommy. 

Phil can feel the tears rising behind his eyes and all of a sudden he needs to sit down. He plops down on Techno’s old bed and picks up that patched blanket, wrapping it around himself. His boys…

What had happened to them?

The sickening squelch as he drove Wilbur’s own sword through his flesh haunted his dreams and would shake him from his slumber. The light leaving his eyes as he slumped to the ground played on repeat in his mind, reminding him that he had killed his son. 

The fire in Technoblade’s eyes and the fire around him took space in his mind as well. His son was a bloodthirsty monster, killing for fun and challenging the very gods of their existence. He had far outgrown his patched blanket cape and this house, and Phil knew he would never come back. 

And then Tommy. The look on his face as he had wept for his brothers, scared for the future. He wasn’t much better though. Already he was on the brink of another war with Dream for his discs, and the vice president of a destroyed country. 

Maybe it ran in the family.

Phil pressed his face into the pillow to smother his sobs. 

Where had he gone wrong?

His sons were terrorists and war mongers and revolutionaries. They fought and killed and didn’t care for the consequences of their actions. They were some of the most powerful people in the world, and they were terrible. 

He’d failed as a father. 

He’d raised three monsters. 

Phil wept like all three of them were dead. 


End file.
